"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
~Thomas Edison

I love art, gardening, junking and all kinds of vintage stuff! This blog will have treasures I find, things I have remade into new treasures, cool vintage stuff- and also photos I take of garden art and recycling that I find on my jaunts. And of course it will feature my home...the ultimate recycling/renovating project!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

We just spiffed it up a little by trimming out the floor and painting all the trim a fresh lighter cream color. The rest of the stuff we did in a previous makeover 8 years ago.

The magazine rack is a rail off of an old baby crib. I got 2 of them at an auction. I sold one by displaying it like this. Then I decided to keep this one.Here is the sink all finished. Joe built the counter top and tiled it. We simply hung a skirt around the bottom storage area with hook and loop tape. Makes it super easy to wash.Ahhh, the trim around the floor. Have I told you how happy that makes me? Oh yes, I guess I have. If you are a do-it-your-selfer, slowly renovating a house, you probably know how I feel.One of the commenters on a previous post about the bathroom wanted to see the sink. This is the new kohler sink we got at a garage sale for a dollar and then had to splurge on the faucet to get one that fit. It's not especially fancy, but it was the only one set up for a sink like this one. If it ever breaks I think we might be able to use a kitchen faucet.I have to say the brass finish is lasting very well...it's a Kohler faucet. This style sink is wonderful for washing your hair in...and great for bathing a baby too!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

We had a big night...our youngest graduated from high school. How does time fly by so quickly?! It seems like just yesterday we were walking her to grade school, and now she's a wonderful young woman. Here she is getting a hug from her brother after the ceremony.Joe finished up the gable today and is moving down to the next level. Looking good! I sure wish whoever installed that vent had centered it.

Years ago I planted slender duetzia shrubs in the planter box in front of the porch. I love how it has matured and weeps over the front of the planter. Apparently Hawkeye thinks they smell good too! Or maybe there is a bunny in there.We have some wild columbine growing here and there in our yard....it seeds freely and I like them popping up all over. Other gardeners who like their flowers to stay where they are put might not be so crazy about them. Thank goodness we have plants like these...I still don't have any annuals in the ground yet.We've hung a hummingbird feeder near these since we usually see hummers feeding from them, but so far haven't seen a hummingbird.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Today I started out to scrape the front porch. I got the inside scraped and caulked, but I didn't even get to the outside. And OOOOh am I ever sore. Remember I said I need to get back into shape? Boy can I feel it tonight!Here it is right after I scraped.I'm trying to help with the low parts, because in a week we need to be packing up the scaffolding and getting ready for a graduation party.... our little girl graduates from high school. I can hardly believe it.And here is my other project. I bought some outdoor fabric to recover the cushions on the back porch. How's that for bright and cheerful? Eventually I'd like to paint the glider red...to match the cute little breakfast set we got at Kmart last week. The glider is a garage sale find...my mom and dad found it and bought it for me for my birthday one year. $25....gotta love a deal like that!I'm probably going to make some little throw pillows out of this tablecloth. Don't you just love the girl out flower shopping?!

Tonight I really should put the last coat on the bathroom trim. If I can move.

Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for the giveaway leave a comment on the post below to enter.

Monday, May 19, 2008

I've decided to participate in One Woman's Cottage Life Cottage Charm Giveaway. I will be giving away some items available in my shop Home Again Antiques at Old City Hall Shoppes. The prize is pictured above: a nesting bird arrangement, all natural lavender soap, lavender sachets, a vintage doiley, and some instant ancestors (such cute little girls in Victorian clothes!). Due to shipping costs, this prize will go to the first name drawn from within the United States. If I draw your name and you are from elsewhere I will still mail you the latest Mary Engelbreit Home Companion Magazine. If you would like to enter all you have to do is leave a comment on this post by midnight May 30th. On the 31st I will draw the winner/winners. Even if you've never left a comment before, leave one on this post and you are entered!

I've been working on priming the trim and doors that you saw in the last post, and I thought I'd give you some background on this room. this is what it looked like when we bought the house. Complete with plastic, sort of wood looking vanity.We bought this house in 1988 and this definitely looks like an eighties bath in an old home. In 1999 we decided that we couldn't stand it any longer. I tried to strip the wallpaper, but the wall board came with it. We did not want to gut the room at this point, so I decided to cover it if possible.Joe and I primed lots of paper bags and tore them up into random pieces which my sis and mom and I applied with wallpaper paste. We planned to do a paint treatment over the paper.At this time, I got terrified that I had actually made an even worse mess of the bathroom and that we'd still have to gut it.So I mixed up some paint and did the wall behind the door...and I liked it pretty well!We found a brand new Kohler sink at a garage sale for a dollar. Which seemed like a great deal until we realized it was a very unusual sink and would require a faucet which cost a couple of hundred bucks over what we would usually spend on a faucet. We bit the bullet and ordered the faucet. Here you see Joe constructing the counter top. He also laid a green vinyl floor.Counter top almost done. You can see that we had to curve it back to make way for the closet (under the stair) door. I don't have pic, but a skirt hangs under this counter to cover the storage space. I wanted a vintage mirror with no medicine cabinet, but Joe wanted a medicine cabinet. Sometimes you have to compromise...I know Joe does what I want a lot, so turn about's fair play. I'm still not wild about the light on this, and may be trying to find a way to alter the lighting situation and a still keep the cabinet. Any ideas?The business end of the room. I etched the glass on the window so we wouldn't have to have a curtain. I would love to replace the window with a bigger sash window like in the rest of the house. We could put shutters over the bottom section.

Now the room has been like this for years. We had shower doors for a long time, but they were a pain and now we have a curtain. As you can see I painted the trim a darker color the first time, and now I am going to paint it a lighter creamy color to try and freshen it up. Except the ceiling trim...I like how that kind of just blends in with the border. I'll keep you posted and show more pics as I get things back together.Today's work....... filled nail holes and primed the doors and jams.My helper got a little primer on his nose.

While I was doing this, Joe was up on the scaffold painting the fishscale siding on our front gable.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Ahh, a lovely picture of the throne. But wait, look past the throne and what do you see? Baseboard!!!!! You have no idea how happy this makes me! We did this bathroom right before our Year 2000 New Years Party. Every time I sat here, I would get irritated that we still didn't have trim around this floor. Joe has the this week and next week off and he has been knocking out some jobs that have been waiting a long time.Now tomorrow I have to pick out some paint. I'm going to paint all the trim in this room and that should freshen it up pretty well. Looking at this pic, I think I may have to fill the nail holes too.

Edited to add: I just wanted to say that Joe cut these corner blocks...I think they turned out very nice!

I was recently tagged by Margo at Robolady. If you like recycling things in a new way you should visit her blog. She's full of ideas! I need to think of 7 random things about myself and then pass this on. So I'll try and come up with 7 new things that I've not shared before.

1. The best practical joke I ever did: sneaking into (breaking and entering!) a friend's apartment and rearranging and hiding his stuff. Several weeks later we visited him and there were still dishes hidden in his overhead light fixture. What can I say...it was college. And were lucky not to be caught.2. I'm afraid of heights. Afraid enough that I sometimes end up in tears when attempting high up home repairs.3. My desk really does look something like the cartoon above.4. I'm 45 and I still want a tree house.5. In my baby book it says "When I grow up I want to be: a trapeze artist and queen of the Rose Bowl parade." I guess I've always been very practical ;o)6. My "new" used car has a ton of gadgets---and I love them!!7. I'd like to bicycle from my house to my sister's house in Indiana. 220 miles.

About Me

Painting, journaling, antiquing, and working on fixing up my little craftsman bungalow. My kids are grown, and I'm starting to get used to (and love) being mom to grown-ups! Each day is a gift, and a new chance to live well.